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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25146415">pray i fade</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/scipunx/pseuds/cielle'>cielle (scipunx)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>the princess and the cursan ass(assin) [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Andromeda Six (Visual Novel)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, I just had to insert a Ryona &amp; Damon friendship moment cuz I love them, Soul Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 02:53:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,230</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25146415</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/scipunx/pseuds/cielle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s her, isn’t it?” Alisa whips her head around to look at Damon, the disbelief in her face dissolving into a fit of laughter. “Seriously, your soulmate is a fuckin’ prin—?”</p><p>“—<i>shut up</i>, will ya?”</p><div class="center">
  <p>✾✾</p>
</div><br/>The pure rage that Ivy is radiating overwhelms his own shock, the burning of his mark piercing through his wrist. He instinctively claps a hand over it, which doesn’t escape Vexx’s notice as Ivy’s own mark visibly turns fluorescent.<p>“<i>He’s</i> your soulmate?” the K’Merii agent looks at her scornfully. “Damn, you’re more screwed than I thought.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Damon Reznor/Traveler, Vexx Serif/Traveler</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>the princess and the cursan ass(assin) [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1819468</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>61</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>pray i fade</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Accompaniment to <i>fate, up against your will</i> for Episode 4. I highly recommend reading it before this for added context.</p><p>Shout out to Anna for being a darl &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Wouldn’t you do whatever it takes to protect the people you love?”</p><p>The assassin stares at her, expectant of her answer, his cold eyes giving away nothing.</p><p><em>I’d do anything for you,</em> Ivy wants to say, but the words lay trapped beneath her tongue. They definitely wouldn’t be well received.</p><p>Longing simmers in the pit of her stomach. A corner of Damon’s lips twitches, an outward hint at his displeasure that flashes within her.</p><p>She holds his gaze as the marks on their wrists grow warm.</p><p>“You know I would.”</p><p>✾✾</p><p>Damon’s fingers enclose around the music box, the feeling of Kitalphanite cool in his palm. A foreign sadness trickles into his periphery, before drowning him in relentless waves.</p><p>Ivy’s hand is still wrapped around his wrist, the mark prickling with heat beneath her touch. Damon silently grits his teeth.</p><p>“Won’t you let go of my arm?” he finally bites out.</p><p>She does, and her hurt slices through him like a blade.</p><p>Guilt flares itself before Damon can help it, and he briefly entertains the thought of selling off the trinket like Ivy’s asked him to.</p><p>“Well, then—”</p><p>Warm affection floods through him, and the hopeful light in her eyes makes him reconsider.</p><p>✾✾</p><p>Alisa is… intimidating, to say the least.</p><p>Damon’s entire form relaxes around the woman in a way that she hasn’t seen before. Ivy needs to right herself when she feels a fondness from him that has never been directed at her, an ugly feeling twisting in her chest.</p><p>She knows exactly what it is, but she doesn’t want to admit it to herself.</p><p>“It’s nice to meet you,” Ivy grinds out, struggling to contain the grossness that’s gnawing at her.</p><p>Alisa’s flinty eyes narrow in her direction, before realisation dawns in them.</p><p>“It’s her, isn’t it?” Alisa whips her head around to look at Damon, the disbelief in her face dissolving into a fit of laughter. “Seriously, your soulmate is a fuckin’ prin—?”</p><p>“—<em>shut up</em>, will ya?”</p><p>Damon juts an elbow into Alisa’s ribs, his glare shooting daggers into his old friend. She stays unfazed, and their crewmates burst out in a series of shocked gasps. Calderon remains the exception, his unimpressed expression deepening.</p><p>Ivy is horrified.</p><p>“Oops, did I spill a secret?” Alisa grins, tilting her head slightly to the side. “Sorry, I forgot myself for a moment back there.”                         </p><p>She doesn’t look the least bit apologetic.</p><p>“You two are soulmates?!” Ayame shrieks delightedly. “Oh my god, this is just <em>beautiful</em>.”</p><p>Bash snickers, “Pure poetry, I daresay.”</p><p>Speechless, Ivy watches Damon’s face combust in a reflection of her own, the cumulation of their shared embarrassment making her cringe inwards.</p><p>“…goddammit, Lisa,” he groans and runs a hand over his face, as if trying to hide.</p><p>“Glad to hear that ya missed me too, sweetheart.”</p><p>✾✾</p><p>Finalising field packs with Ryona is slightly awkward, while she’s eyeing him knowingly throughout the whole process.</p><p>“I can hear you thinking,” Damon drawls at her.</p><p>“You should give Ivy a chance.”</p><p>Rolling his eyes, Damon finishes loading a fresh magazine into his blaster. “Not you too, Ry. I get enough shit from Cal about it, as is.”</p><p>“You deserve happiness, Damon,” she says gently, and the sincerity in her voice makes him appreciate her all the more. “Despite what you feel about yourself.”</p><p>He snorts, “I know I do.”</p><p>The medic grabs a roll of bandages from her first-aid kit and pelts it at Damon’s head, but he easily dodges. She’s about to dispense some of her sage advice for him, he’s sure of it.</p><p>“Knowing and feeling are two different things.”</p><p>They know each other far too well.</p><p>✾✾</p><p>Cursa smells of ozone and cigarette smoke, the afterglow of flickering neon lights imprinting itself behind her eyelids.</p><p>Ivy stands in the middle of the street, giving herself a moment to take it all in. She’s interrupted by Damon who brushes past her shoulder. He shoots her an impatient look.</p><p>“Y’done gawking yet?”</p><p>“Nope,” she can’t help the widening grin across her face. “I never got to travel much.”</p><p>“It’s really nothing to look at.”</p><p>“It’s <em>everything</em>, Damon.”</p><p>Ivy swears that a flicker of softness crosses his expression, and her heart jolts. The feeling quickly slips through her grasp, as though it were never there.</p><p>When Damon fills in the gaps between her fingers with his own, she’s convinced otherwise.</p><p>✾✾</p><p>“Go ahead and shoot him,” the princess snarls, and Damon takes a second to reconfigure his hearing, because—</p><p>“—what the fuck?” he splutters.</p><p>The pure rage that Ivy is radiating overwhelms his own shock, the burning of his mark piercing through his wrist. He instinctively claps a hand over it, which doesn’t escape Vexx’s notice as Ivy’s own mark visibly turns fluorescent.</p><p>“<em>He’s</em> your soulmate?” the K’Merii agent looks at her scornfully. “Damn, you’re more screwed than I thought.”</p><p>Damon feels the punch to her gut at those words. <em>Fucking ouch.</em></p><p>His protectiveness naturally rears its ugly head, but he manages to come to his senses. Shaking the feeling off, he reaches forward and snatches his blaster from Ryona’s grasp.</p><p>“As much as I would love for you to off carrot head, he’s still useful,” he says pointedly at the medic. “And you should know better.”</p><p>Ryona’s glare is venomous. “But—”</p><p>“—he’s a filthy traitor!” Ivy snaps.</p><p>Her pain is too much, and it’s messing with his head. For once, Damon empathically reaches out to her, desperately trying to salve her wounds. Ivy’s shoulders relax as she exhales raggedly, the storm within her clearing.</p><p>He tries not to be too relieved, but he can finally admit to himself that he hates seeing her like this.</p><p>✾✾</p><p>“No need to freak out,” Alisa’s mismatched eyes soften. “You’re his soulmate, and our thing is ancient history.”</p><p>“Are you sure we’re not soulmates as well?” a laugh splutters out of Ivy’s throat, and she jokingly sneaks a look to check the woman’s wrist for a six-petal rosette. “‘Cause with the way you’re reading me, it sure seems like it.”</p><p>The redhead smirks and holds up a bare wrist for show. “You wish, Princess. We don’t need to be soulmates for me to see what you’re feeling, ‘specially when you wear your heart on your sleeve.”</p><p>“Fair.”</p><p>“Also, any guesses as to who taught Damon how to read people?”</p><p>Ivy smiles, not needing to respond. A comfortable silence settles over them.</p><p>“If you break his heart, I’ll break your face,” Alisa speaks bluntly.</p><p>“Damon’s more likely to break my heart, to be perfectly honest.” She’s embarrassed that the words slip out so pathetically.</p><p>“…you’d be surprised,” Alisa says quietly, after a faraway look momentarily grazes her face. “But he’ll come around, eventually. Trust me.”</p><p>Ivy takes the gang leader at her word, because she hopes so badly for it to be true.</p><p>✾✾</p><p>The presence of his oldest friend transports him to a different time, one of which he’d rather not get lost in. Alisa is the one who’s responsible for the handful of good memories he has of Cursa. Seeing her again fills him with an easy calm that he hasn’t felt in too long.</p><p>It’s why Damon knows he deserves it when Alisa steps forward and gives him a smack to the head.</p><p>“How could you do that to your soulmate?” she hisses, hand still raised for another attack. “You’re a fuckin’ idiot.”</p><p>“Ay, I get it, I get it!” he shrinks back in self-defence. “Everyone’s been on my ass about it, and I’m <em>very</em> aware that I fucked up, alright?”</p><p>“Bet you ain’t even apologised yet.”</p><p>He’s chastened by the glower that Alisa gives him, just a bit.</p><p>There was a time when Damon wished that they were each other’s, because it would just make so much sense.</p><p>“Y’know how I feel about soulmates,” he says lowly. “It’s just… hard to be in the same room as her, when she’s bombarding me with all these feelings that ain’t mine.”</p><p>“At least you only have one,” Alisa grumbles, rubbing at her shoulder. “I gotta deal with twice the amount of shit.”</p><p>Damon recalls the two marks beneath her clavicles: one of a rising sun complemented by a waning moon on the opposing side.</p><p>“Zane ain’t good enough for ya.”</p><p>“The powers that be seem to think he is,” Alisa’s amused smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “And they’ve got a fucked-up sense of humour.”</p><p>He knows now that nothing good ever comes easy, and he’s tired of trying to outrun his fate.</p><p>✾✾</p><p>Ivy sinks in overwhelming relief when she spots Damon and Alisa running down the ramp to the docks. <em>He’s safe</em>, she thinks. It’s all that matters.</p><p>“I’m not leaving,” Damon says, his indignance digging its claws into her skin.</p><p>She blurts out, “Neither am I,” and the assassin’s eyes widen briefly. “If he’s staying, then I’m not going anywhere.”</p><p>The resulting silence makes her cheeks blaze, until Alisa clears her throat.</p><p>“Stay with your princess, Damon,” she grins. “I’ve got this.”</p><p>It’s only now that Ivy notices that the assassin’s blush goes up to his ears.</p><p>✾✾</p><p>“C’mon, Reznor,” Vexx sneers. “You’re no better than I am. I saw the way you treated Ivy like shit as a soulmate.”</p><p>Damon tries to steel his face against the anger that bubbles up inside of him, coupled with just a dash of guilt.</p><p>The K’Merii agent twists the knife further, his vacant eyes boring into him cruelly. “She used to tell me that if it weren’t for the damned marks, she’d be mine.”</p><p>Surging forward, Damon slams a forearm into Vexx’s chest, pinning him against the storage room’s wall.</p><p>“Watch your fucking tongue,” the assassin snarls, hovering a blade dangerously close to Vexx’s face. “Or else I’ll cut it off, carrot head.”</p><p>“Ooh, did I hit a nerve?” he laughs, eerily unperturbed by just how close he is to losing an appendage. “Someone’s awfully possessive.”</p><p><em>Shit.</em> He just completely lost it over a stupid dig.</p><p>Damon breathes in slowly to compose himself. He gradually eases his arm off the man, taking a step backwards.</p><p>“You’ve gotten soft, stab-happy,” Vexx scoffs. “You’re just as pathetic as she is.”</p><p>✾✾</p><p>The man before her is not the person she fell in love with.</p><p>Vexx’s face is devoid of the warmth that Ivy is familiar with, leaving an unsettling blank mask in its place.</p><p>“What did you say to Damon that got him so riled up like that?” Her soulmate’s fury had left her wrist burning while she stood outside the storage room.</p><p>“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Ivy wants to deck this stranger and wipe off the ugly curl of his lips. “Pissed off your boyfriend pretty badly, though. Poor bastard threatened to cut my tongue out.”</p><p>That definitely sounds like Damon.</p><p>“You have a shitty taste in men, might I add.”</p><p>“Shut up,” she growls, fists clenched at her sides. “He’s not my boyfriend.”</p><p>Vexx’s heartless laugh sends a shiver down her spine. “Oh, but you wish he were. I see the way you look at him, as if he’s your whole world.”</p><p>Her throat wells up.</p><p>“You used to look at me just like that, Princess.”</p><p>“I never want to look at you again!”</p><p>Just as she’s finished screaming at him, Vexx doubles over in pain, clutching at his head.</p><p>Ivy chooses to look away.</p><p>✾✾</p><p>He watches the way his soulmate’s eyes glaze over at the music box in her hands, observing the blue flecks scattered amongst an amber haze. The holographic ballerina twirls to a twinkling lullaby, its wistful sound transporting them to someplace far away from the present.</p><p>Damon feels a twinge in his chest, before Ivy snaps out of her reverie with a watery smile.</p><p>“It’s perfect,” she says, eyes crinkling in happiness. “But you didn’t have to go through so much trouble. You could’ve just apologised, and that would’ve been more than enough.”</p><p>He recalls all of the times she’s comforted him when he’s needed it and thinks that this is the least he can do to repay her.</p><p>“Talk is cheap for people like me,” the assassin is no stranger to fake, pretty words as a means to something he wants. “But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”</p><p>He wants to do things right, this time. He wants to be better.</p><p>The heat that fills him is overwhelming, almost frighteningly so. Damon stumbles as Ivy throws herself into his arms, his nerves singeing at the contact.</p><p>“Thank you, Damon,” she squeezes him tightly, and he has to swallow down a shaky breath. “This means so much to me.”</p><p>Laughing softly, he wraps his arms around her and tries to steady himself, struggling against the force of his soulmate’s emotions waging internally within. Ivy looks at him like nobody else ever has, her eyes filled with an unconditional adoration that honestly scares him a little.</p><p>Everyone keeps saying that he deserves happiness, but—</p><p>Damon quickly discards the thought and slips into his usual façade. He lets his hands trail down to the princess’ waist and holds her like she belongs there, just as the universe intends.</p><p>Wearing the same, practised smirk, he gives her a wink and a teasing squeeze before letting her go. He doesn’t miss the way that Ivy’s face falls slightly, or her sting of disappointment that nips at him.</p><p>“To be continued,” Damon promises.</p><p>Because he’s not entirely ready, just yet.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <i>“Pray I fade<br/>Paint the coward, that’s your game<br/>Chase my fate<br/>Hold your breath and lay the blame</i>
  </p>
  <p>
    <i>We look to the sun, we stare for hours<br/>We sing to the moon, we chase desire<br/>We run for the stars to spark a fire<br/>And we run, and we run, and it burns like hell.”</i>
  </p>
  <p>– Endless Heights</p>
</div></blockquote></div></div>
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